United States Vice President J.D. Vance called prominent Muslim journalist Mehdi Hasan a “dummy” during a free speech debate on the social media app X on Monday after Hasan tagged him in a post referring to an Axios article criticizing the White House decision to ban Associated Press journalists from the Oval Office and press briefings indefinitely.

“Hey @JDVance, I know you’re busy lecturing the Europeans on free speech, but have you seen this?,” Hasan wrote on X, who is an ex-MSNBC host and currently the Editor in Chief and CEO of Zeteo News.

The White House’s decision comes as the AP disputed U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the body of water between the continental U.S. and Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” The news outlet explained in a statement that it will continue to use its traditional name, the Gulf of Mexico.

He also referred to the Munich Security Conference, which Vance spoke at on Friday, accusing European Union “commissioners” of suppressing free speech.

“Yes dummy. I think there’s a difference between not giving a reporter a seat in the WH press briefing room and jailing people for dissenting views,” Vance replied. “The latter is a threat to free speech, the former is not. Hope that helps!”

Hasan then invited Vance to hash out their disagreements in a live interview.

“Open invite to the Vice President to come on my show and do an interview with me about the state of free speech in the US and Europe,” Hassan wrote. “He won’t accept, of course, as he has a safe space on Fox. But I’m making the offer anyways, in the name of free speech and free debate,” Hasan wrote.

Vance has yet to reply.

Since the dispute, Hasan lambasted the Vice President in an article on Zeteo.

“I am well aware that the job of vice president is mostly ceremonial, doesn’t involve much actual work, and, in the words of our first vice president, is ‘the most insignificant Office that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived,” Hasan wrote. “But I was still amused that the current VP had nothing else more important to do on a Monday than come into my replies and name-call like a second-grader.”

Hasan also wrote that the AP’s decision to continue writing Gulf of Mexico instead of the “Gulf of America” was their “refusal to bend the knee.”